aw hell no

It is 3AM. I am not asleep, nor have i slept. After publishing my last post and stating i was going to sleep. I did not. Instead I spent 2 hours reading some other guys blog. YOU IDIOT.

Mwa Ha Ha

Hey everybody. Hows it all goin'. I was asking my brothers today about if they could, how would they choose to have their luck dispersed. You guys ponder too. Would you rather have all your luck dispersed evenly through ought every day so that every day is around average. Or would you choose to have your luck bundled up and have spurts of extremely good luck days follwed by spurts of extremely bad luck days? I always think that my luck is similar to the latter one. I always have certain really good days and followed by really bad days. Yaaah. I think if I could chose, I'd leave it. Because it when i have really really good days. They make me extra happy. But of course that means I have really bad days, and yes they make me angry and stressfull, but I still like the feeling I get after I get home from a really good day.
Hohoh. today was an above average day I guess.. or at least it ended pretty well. The weekend was really swell too so thats why i brought it up. Main reason for todays entry. I GOT MY FIRST A+ PAPER TODAY DAWGS!! Whoo man you guys have no idea how surprised and happy I was. Especially considering I totally wasn't expecting it. I got it on my Film Studies Critcal Project. I have it in my hand right now. Hee hee. So happy. I'm also feeling pretty upbeat because I have pretty much all 3 of my papers done now. I just have 2 write the last entry for my ArtH response. And if I have time I'll touch up my C. Literature paper. (Which I had decided as being 'done' yesterday but decided not to hand it in after like 5 hours of debating.) But anyhoo, someone praise me on my A+!! I'm so happy, haha i actually rejoiced when i walked into the house. My brothers didn't say anything to me though :( I was really proud, haha. I dunno how this is possible but I'm doing so much better this year than my other years. Which seems ironic because this year I'm balancing 5 courses, and a part time job, whereas in previous years I've always had less than 5 courses and in 1st year I didn't even have a job. How Bizarre. Now I just hope I do well on the 3 papers that I'm going to be handing in this week.....and on all my exams.... I dunno how my brother is doing in his school work. I hope hes doing okay. I seen his report today and I dunno if maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but it seems like hes not doing that great. He prolly has no clue cuz hes a jerk, but it really bothers me sometimes. And everyday I always worry for him too. I get so angry cuz he always sleeps on the couch, even though theres a perfectly good bed in the other room for him. Knowing from experience, it makes school work extra stressful if you cant concentrait or dont get a good nights sleep. I seriously thought about moving into felix's room so he could have his room back, but then I'd be the one stressed out since felix wakes up earlier than I do and he always wakes me up in the process. Tchow on the otherhand wakes up earlier than both of us so I dont see why he doesn't sleep in the room. Its so dumb. Gah, its the most obvious solution and it works best too, I just dont understand why hes such a jerk.
Harg, i dunno how that last bit came up, but I'm a bit upset now. I think i'll go off on a tangent about work on Friday and how I think some of my customers are in cahoots w/ each other :) Haha I swear. Theres these 3 (sometimes 4) customers that i recognize that (i believe) dont know each other. And everytime I see 1 of them, the other 2 always come in either later in the day, or the next day I work. And then. I wont see all 3 of them for like 2-3 weeks. And then, 1 of them shows up, and the other 2 show up later on. Its creepy. But strangely gratifying when I see them. Becase they are pretty.... Tee hee. haha i'm dense. BUT ITS TRUE! I told Yvonne, and she laughed. She asked me who and she only knew who 'ben' was. He cut his hair into a mohawk, since the last time i seen him. It was extremely hot. Hahah I was in the kitchen getting stuff and Yvonne told me my take out was here. And i went outside and i seriously dropped my jaw. hey you got extremely hot since the last time i seen you ;) haha which i didn't say. Tee hee. so purty. I dont know the gangster guys name but since Yvonne noticed the other 2 guys' names start w/ B, she said, "Maybe his names Barley" And i laughed. because that is such a gangster name. Hahah. Welp I gotta go 2 shower now. So then I can get up 2morrolw and finish my 2 papers and maybe Mandarin. And then on Thursday I plan on going to WEM, since I haven't went since September. There is a giant stash of money that I have saved up because I haven't had anything to spend it on. Would anyone like to accompany me? O-hohoho

地狱天堂

Hey yooo.
Such a productive long weekend eh? NOT. I actually didn't get 'anything' done while i was in fort mac. (Unless you count dot-to-dots) I was so sad. Hahah, but the last 3 days however have been quite productive :P On Tuesday morning during the 5 hour bus ride out here I actually finished the entire reading for CLit. It was great. I took a nap from Ft Mac to Grasslands. And after we left Grasslands I started to read for what felt like 10 mintues. I finished reading the entire story. And when I looked up. The bus was in Edmonton. I felt so accomplished. It turns out that I had actually read soemthing like 50 pages. Hahah. After I got back into Edmonton I took a nap, and then i watched way to much tv with my brothers. And then finally I went in and started my Comparative Lit paper. I hate starting papers but once i get into the groove its a lot better. I'm still not quite finished it yet and am missing like... ~200 words. But its certainly better than 1500. Classes resumed on Wednesday so I was pretty much on campus the whole day. And at night I actually finished writing my 3 film journals. Quite pleased. Hahah. Today I woke up around 12 and dooked around before settling down to re-watch The Conversation. I really like that movie. Anyways, so i finished my FS paper, (that one was more smooth and successfull I think) I tried to start on my ArtH responses but I'm having trouble finding articles and stuff. The internet had zilch, and my library search brought up nothing too. I hope i can find some stuff in the library tomorrow or I think i might be in a little trouble.
But anyways. If anyone noticed my title for this blog is in Chinese. It literally translates to Hell Heaven. (Say Whaaa?) Haha, its a title of a chinese song that I've been looking for, for like... 6years now. I FINALLY FOUND IT. MWAHAHAH. So happy. All thanks to my amazing sleuthing skills. And like the help of 3 sites. Hahah. It was ACTUALLY by pure coincedence that i bumped into the MV of it on youtube. (thanks ling). I also discovered how to type 神劍魔刀 !! AMAZING! hahah Thats the chinese name for *The Divine Sword and Possessed Sabre* aka the Blood Stained Intrigue. If i really think about it it was a complete waste of my time as I cant really do anything with it. But it sure was morale boosting! I listened to the 地狱天堂 song like 500 times now. Its so nice. Ohohoh. Har har, but anyhoo, i'm gonna jet now. Might be a long day tomorrow. Chow

Rear Window

Hohum, since its been exactly a week that means I have 2 journals to post up tonight. The screening for tonight was Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and a short film called Les Filles du Roi.

Rear Window
I really enjoyed watching tonights screening of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. I thought the plot was nice and the characters Jeff, Lisa and Stella were also exeptional. I also enjoyed this film because it almost seemed to have more than one story going on at one time. Depending on which window Jeffrey was looking at, the audience would then get a glimpse at a different story line with different people in it. There was Miss Torso and her dancing and the many young gentlemen she would sometimes have over. And then there was Miss Lonely-heart and her story of trying to find a partner. And also there was the pianist and his story about trying to finish composing his songs. And of course the story of Mr and Mrs Thorwald. I liked how all of these 'mini-stories' made up the main story and it was done without being confusing at all. Alfred Hitchcock is said to be the master of suspense, and I'll say that for this movie I think he did a wonderful job. The very first hint the audience gets that trouble is coming, is when Stella is introduced and says something like, 'i can smell trouble a mile away, and frankly, i smell trouble' I also like how the the character Lisa progressed throughout the story. In the beginning she was always all dressed up and posh talking about things like the Waldorf, and Harpers Bazaar. Jeff and Lisa then argued about how 'she couldn't live in his world, and he couldn't live in her world'. Lisa then starts changing when Jeff introduces the thought about murder next door. She starts snooping around (ie finding out the names of the Mr and Mrs) and near the climax of the film she actually volunteers herself to dig up the flowerbed. I thought it was great showing Lisa climb up the fire escape and into the Thornwald's apartment, nearly killing herself, all the while doing it in a fancy dress and high heels. The ending of the movie also wrapped up nicely as it showed happy endings in all the windows, including Jeff and Lisa's.

A little side note that I made at the very beginning of this movie. I never watched Rear Window before, but I did recognize it from an episode of the Simpson's Treehouse of Horror. I immediately recognized the storyline when I seen the foot-in-cast, wheelchair-bound, spying Jeffries since it was the exact same image shown of Bart Simpson in that episode. I found it all the more interesting to watch because, in the Simpsons episode, the murderous neighbor is actually innocent and all of the 'clues' that point to him being a murderer are actually a bunch of coincedences. I kept on wondering if the Simpsons episode was exactly the same as Rear Window and that the outcome would mean that Mr Thorwald was also innocent and that Jeffries, like Bart was just thinking too deeply. So the fact that I had two suspenses going on at the same time, made this film even more enjoyable.

Les Filled du Roi
I was actually surprised that this short film wasn't quite what I expected it to be. After just finishing watching a 2 hour movie I figured I was going to be quite restless and bored throught this film. But as it progressed I thought it wasn't too bad. I guess I wasn't expecting the Feminism theme to be portrayed, and the fact that I felt it was portrayed really well probably aided in my liking of this film. The constant portrayal of women in their 'workplace' mass producing things. Rows and rows of sewing maching operators, data entry workers, it showed how women's jobs at the time weren't unique at all. It was like watching a bunch of lab rats in a cage, you couldn't tell who was who. The narration wass really well done too. I didn't notice how all the women, while at work to 'be closer to their husbands' were actually more in contact with strangers rather than their loved ones, until the narrator clued me in. The narrator cleared up the idea being conveyed in certain scenes, and also made the audience ponder about thoughts, where as if there were no narrative, the audience would just sit there watching pretty pictures on the screen. Considering that this movie seemed documentary-like and I had immediately labelled it as boring, I actually enjoyed this film as well.

Grand Illusion

So this journal entry is about a week late, but as always, better late than never right.

Today we watched Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion. I actually quite enjoyed this film. We were asked to pay attention to this movie in terms of Bazinian's theory of realism, and since I kept an eye out for this throughout the movie I thought I'd note on it. I especially noticed that Grand Illusion had a lot of long takes. For example, in the beginning when everyone is sitting around the dinner table talking, rather than cut to shots of each individual person, the camera did a 360 degree pan. And later when the camera was at the head of the table it was able to record the groups reaction to the news as a whole rather than single out specific people's reactions. Most of the scenes also had clear fore, middle and backgrounds. One of the main things I noticed about long takes is that it conveys space much better. Rather than cutting to different angles all the time (ike in Battleship Potemkin) the camera usually filmed scenes in one shot. To me it was much less confusing and as a member of the audience I wasn't as confused about where the actors where in relation to each other, and the setting. The size and scale of rooms to me was easier to convey. For example the scene where everyone is getting their parcels from the post office room, the camera just stayed at one angle and continuously panned left and right. The audience could see the entrance to the room on the left, and when the employee went to the back to get their parcels, the camera followed him and we were able to see the back of the room. The action for sure is easier to follow with long takes, but it's certainly not as interesting without editing.
Another thing I'd like to comment on is the usage of comedy in this film. I thought Grand Illusion was absolutely hilarious at certain scenes, and the comedy parts seemed absolutely effortless. All the hilarity was implied through actions and reactions and I thought this was especially nice. Sometimes movies try to hard to be funny but I thought the comedy in this film was great. For example the scene were one of the soldiers dresses up in a skirt and all the other men in the room stare at him. Aside from the man in the dress mumbling about 'how silly he looks', there is no other dialouge. Only shots of him and the crowd of men staring at him longingly thinking that he doesn't actually look that bad. This scene was hilarious, when in actuality there wasn't really much going on in the scene, just implied meanings.

no idea

Just a quick post tonight. It's been a few weeks i think since my last post. And i just want everyone who cares to know that I feel better now. I'm going back to fort mac 2morrow for the long weekend, so we'll see how that goes.
On the lighter side of things, if anyone read my 3rd last post about the supah dreamy guy from Veronica Mars, i've got some stories to elaborate on. Ohohoh. So when i watched the ending to season 1, I was like WTF. cuz i wanted to know who was knocking at her door. And i skimmed a spoiler on Wikipedia (damn you Wikipedia) that the dreamy guy was credited as being Veronica's bf. So i was like oh yay. And then i watched the 1st episode of the 2nd season, and it was seriously F-ed up. Stuff kept on switching around and in the end Veronica didn't end up the dreamy guy. And i was like... SAY WHAAA? and then the episode ended. And i went onto wikipedia cuz i couldnt take the suspense and read the entire series re-cap. Hahah i'm an idiot. But dreamy man and Veronica do get back together again 'late' in the series. So yeah... bittersweet. Yarg. Welp, thats all for now, i gotta go to sleep and get up early 2morrow.